Penny Dreadful Season 1 Review

Season 1 of Showtime's highly touted 'Penny Dreadful' is over. So after eight episodes, what was it like, what did we get, and was it worth it? Beware, for spoilers lurk ahead.

Although there were a number of subplots with no real payoff, the big plot of the season was that explorer Malcolm Murray's daughter Mina was turned into a vampire by a mysterious Master. Who wasn't the bald vampire that people kept calling "Master," but some other mysterious nobleman. So Malcolm assembled a team of adventurers to hunt down his daughter and free her. This included Mina's childhood friend Vanessa (a psychic of sorts), American Wild West showman Ethan Chandler (man of mystery who turns out to be a wolfman), African tribesman Sembene (who we really found out nothing about), and a young mortician named Victor Frankenstein (who keeps something strange up in his attic).

Together they spend about five of the eight episodes hunting down the Master (1, 3, 4, 6, 8 if you're counting). Tied in with this is the fact that since the vampires have Egyptian tattoos, they are connected to two ancient Egyptian deities who must never meet. Because if they do, the world will end in apocalypse.

And that brings us to the B Plot, which is Vanessa's psychic abilities come from the fact that she is possessed by a demon. It may be the Devil, it may be one of those Egyptian deities. Seeing and having sex (this is Showtime, remember?) awakens the demon within her and then she goes crazy, lashes out at her friends, and bites the cheeks off of priests (this is Showtime, remember?).

I mentioned five main chaacters up above, but there are eight main cast members. So that brings us to Dorian Grey, a mysterious young nobleman who lusts after Vanessa and is intrigued with her darkness. After having sex with Ethan (this is Showtime, remember?) and Ethan's girlfriend, a dying prostitute named Brona, Dorian has sex with Vanessa and unleashes her darkness. Dorian also has a portrait in his basement that he goes to when he needs to instantly heal his wounds, and he keeps talking about how bored he is with life.

Brona is the seventh cast member and she spends all eight episodes dying of consumption. This makes her the future bride of our eighth cast member. Remember up above when I mentioned Victor Frankenstein is one of the intrepid group? Well, he has a creation put together in his lab. It's kind and gentle and innocent... and a red herring because Victor's first creation, named Caliban, shows up at the end of episode 2 and rips Victor's second creation apart. While Caliban works in a Grand Guignol theater as a stagehand, he demands that Victor create a bride for him, and Victor needs a corpse.

There are also some Jack the Ripper murders, and explorer Malcolm has to face the fact that he would "kill the world" to save his daughter Mina. That means he's willing to use Vanessa's demonic link to find her daughter no matter what it does to Vanessa.

And that's pretty much all of our major story elements for season 1. So how does the show wrap it all up? Pretty well, at least as far as the main storyline is concerned. They killed off the Master's lieutenant, and Malcolm was forced to kill his daughter. Before she died, she said that the true Master wants all of them, and Vanessa in particularly to sire a new brood of vampires. So presumably we'll get Dracula next year.

They hold back on revealing that Ethan is the wolfman until the end of the season, and he may not be the only one in England. He seems to have gained his powers from American Indians in some manner, and may be a half-breed himself. Ethan also seems to know enough Latin to either conduct an exorcism or fake one really well.

Victor and Caliban have resolved their differences and now Victor is turning Brona into the Bride of Caliban.

Malcolm and Vanessa have resolved their differences when Malcolm shot his daughter Mina and said that Vanessa was his daughter now. That leaves the ending where she goes to a priest for an exorcism and he asks her if she really wants to be normal. I didn't think Catholic priests who thought exorcism was necessary asked the victims if they wanted to let he Devil loose in the world, but go figure.

Sembene, we learn... nothing.

Along the way we've had Proteus, Victor's first creation. Who met a violent death. And Dr. Van Helsing, who befriends Victor and knows a lot about vampires. Who met a violent death. And we had a medium, Madame Kali, who seems to know more about Malcolm than she claims, and may be a lead-in to a story arc in season 2.

Other than Billie Piper as Brona, there weren't any bad performances in the lot. And it may simply have been that Brona didn't have much to do but die this season. Eva Green had the high-profile role of the season, with two entire episodes dedicated to her character Vanessa. Reeve Carney (Dorian), Rory Kinnear (Caliban), and Josh Hartnett (Ethan) were also excellent, and Timothy Dalton (Malcolm) and Harry Treadaway (Victor) were also strong.

The show also gave us lots of good guest starring actors. Alun Armstrong as Caliban's mentor in the theater, David Warner as Van Helsing, Olly Alexander as the Renfield substitute, and Alex Price as the innocent Proteus.

As befits Showtime, there was plenty of sex, nudity, violence, and swearing.

For those looking for closure, there wasn't a whole lot. Season 1 acted as more of an introduction to the series. Ethan's wolfman-ish and why he fled the U.S., Dorian's immortality, Sembene's whole back story... none of that was explained.

Still, 'Penny Dreadful' proved to be well worth the eight hours Showtime dedicated to it this year. If you haven't seen it, check it out in the inevitable repeats and marathons if you get Showtime, check it out online, or wait for the DVD pack to come out.

Breathtaking..Dark and electric sexual sensuality. I loved it and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen link bringing all the horror greats together was really good. Acting was fantastic and Billie Piper again showed us what a great actor she is. The northern irish accent was great. In all a great ride. Can't wait for the next season and hope it gets 24 episodes.

Anonymous

Message Posted On Jul 2nd, 2014, 11:35 am

I really liked "Penny", but it was because of the mood,art direction and performances which by television standards were all and without question absolutely first rate. In terms of the plotting and actual originality we had a sortof House of Frankenstein "B" movie meets Creepy Magazine (Warren Pub.) meets English Lit 101 subset Gothic. Both Dracula and Frankenstein were used to clumsy effect. The best line came from the Frankenstein monster himself who said
"I am Modernism personified" Could you not get a greater Art school tag line?

Anonymous

Message Posted On Jul 1st, 2014, 8:31 am

I enjoyed it, the intro theme has a touch of Walking Dead and then jumps to GOT. I love the way they do that, stick with the hits.
I struggled to find Victoria London, snow too pure and not enough crap and poor people on set, but not a distraction.
Not sure why Billie Piper had to have an Irish accent, her Cockney take is more genuine. Maybe London never had local prostitutes they must have been all imported.
All that aside, the title and combined storyline, and great acting makes for good entertainment. Bring on Season 2
Molly Mogo

wynn Level 1 (66%)Mood: aggravatedSince: 01/Feb/13

Message Posted On Jun 30th, 2014, 7:41 pm

Found this surprisingly good actually.

And aye, Eva Green just does another amazing job with this role and character. A must watch in my opinion.

LooraGreen

Message Posted On Jun 30th, 2014, 4:15 pm

Anything with Eva Green in it has to be excellent by definition alone. She's easily one of the most gifted actresses these days. And she can be quite pretty, if she chooses to appear that way which does not always seem to be her preferred choice. I admire her for going "natural" in the media a lot. Most actresses would be scared to death to show their faces without perfect makeup and hair, fancy dresses and the like. Eva Green is diffrent. She'd appear without makeup and wearing jeans, hair being a bit of a mess, for an interview about a glamorous character. She likes the contrast I guess. Unfortunately she often also sounds like she's quite a bitch ... or can be :/

zootie Level 2 (68%)Since: 02/Mar/10

Message Posted On Jun 30th, 2014, 10:44 am

I think it was mostly ok, what you'd expect. They left enough open for a second season on the same primary story lines.

It was a bit counter to the characters. Lord Malcom went from denial about maybe having to kill Mina (from having a couple characters getting ready to do it for him) to choosing Vanessa over Mina in a millisecond - not really a twist if he had just said that Vanessa was expendable. Ethan's warewolf transformation was also a bit counter, considering he seemed sorry for his violent past: he would have made arrangements to curve his wolfe-self during the full moon, not just wait for bounty hunters to show up and get ripped.

It was somewhat interesting to see all these classic horror stories woven in a single show. And for a change, we know very little about vampires and warewolves in this universe (something more to explore, and a bit original given current trends)

chaznet Level 2 (36%)Since: 19/Jun/11

Message Posted On Jun 30th, 2014, 8:45 am

One of the all time dumbest series ever. X-Men, but with previously un-associated classic horror genre characters... More annoying than Dominion ;-)